A warning from beyond the grave.

— The following fact was reported by the Patrie, on August 15, 1858:

“Last Tuesday, I committed the imprudence of telling you a thrilling story. I should have realized that there are no thrilling stories; there are only well-told stories, in such a way that the same fact, narrated by two different people, may put an audience to sleep or provoke shudders of terror. How I entertained myself with my traveling companion, from Cherbourg to Paris, Mr. B…, from whom I heard a marvelous anecdote! Had I taken it down in shorthand, I would certainly have been able to make you shudder. “But I committed the imprudence of trusting my detestable memory, which I deeply regret. In any case, however it may be, here is the adventure, its outcome proving that today, August 15, it is incontestably a fact.

“Mr. de S… — a historic name still held in consideration today — was an officer during the Directory. n Whether for pleasure, or out of the necessity of service, he was traveling to Italy.

“In one of our central departments he was overtaken by night and felt fortunate to find shelter in a sort of shack of suspicious appearance, where they offered him a poor-quality supper and a pallet in the granary.

“Accustomed to the life of adventure and to the rough trade of war, Mr. de S… ate with appetite, lay down without murmuring, and slept deeply.

“His sleep was disturbed by a terrible apparition. He saw a specter rise up in the shadow, march heavily toward his pallet, and stop at the level of the headboard. It was a man of about fifty years, whose hair, gray and tangled, was red with blood; his chest was bare and his throat, wrinkled, was cut and the wounds open. He remained silent for some moments, fixing his black and deep eyes upon the sleeping traveler; then his pale figure became animated and his pupils shone like two burning coals. Seeming to strain with great difficulty, and in a muffled, trembling voice he pronounced these strange words: “— I know you; you are a soldier like me and, like me too, a man of heart, incapable of breaking your word. I come to ask of you a service, which others have already promised me but have not fulfilled. I have been dead for three weeks: the owner of this house, aided by his wife, surprised me during my sleep and cut my throat.

My corpse is hidden under a heap of manure, on the right, at the back of the secondary courtyard. Go, tomorrow, seek out the local authority, bringing with you two gendarmes and having me buried. The owner of the house and his wife will betray themselves and you will deliver them to justice. Farewell, I count upon your piety; do not forget the plea of an old companion in arms.

“Upon awakening, Mr. de S… remembered the dream. He rested his head upon his elbow and set to meditating; his emotion was vivid, dissipating before the first light of day. Like Athalie, he said: A dream! Should I trouble myself over a dream? Ignoring what was happening in his heart, and heeding only the voice of reason, he buckled his bag and continued the journey.

“At the end of the day, arriving at his new stage, he stopped to spend the night at an inn. Scarcely, however, had he closed his eyes when the specter appeared to him a second time, sad and almost menacing.

“— I am surprised and grieved — said the phantom — to see a man like you perjure yourself and fail in your duty. I expected more of your loyalty. My body is without burial, my murderers live in peace. Friend, my vengeance lies in your hands; in the name of honor I summon you to turn back.

“Mr. de S… spent the rest of the night in great agitation; when day broke, he was ashamed of his terror and continued the journey.

“At the fall of evening, third stop and third apparition. This time, the phantom was more livid and more terrible; a bitter smile ran across his white lips. He spoke in a harsh voice:

“— I believe I have judged you wrongly; your heart, like that of others, seems insensible to the supplications of the unfortunate. I come to invoke your aid for the last time and to make an appeal to your generosity. Return to X…, avenge me, or be forever accursed!

“This time Mr. de S… resolved to take the road back to the suspicious inn, where he had spent the first of his lugubrious nights. He went to the residence of the magistrate and asked for two gendarmes. At the sight of him and of the two policemen, the murderers turned pale and confessed the crime, as if a superior force had wrenched from them that fatal confession.

“The trial was conducted swiftly, and they were condemned to death. As for the poor officer, whose corpse was found under a heap of manure, on the right, at the back of the secondary courtyard, he was buried in holy ground and the priests prayed for the repose of his soul.

“Having fulfilled his mission, Mr. de S… hastened to leave the region and ran toward the Alps, without looking back.

“The first time he rested in a bed, the phantom rose up again before his eyes, no longer doing so with ferocity and irritation, but more gently and benevolently, saying to him:

“— Thank you, thank you, brother. I want to thank you for the service you rendered: I will show myself to you one more time, only once: two hours before your death I will come to warn you. Farewell.

“Mr. de S… was then about thirty years old; during an equal period no vision came to disturb the quietude of his life. But on August 14, 182…, the eve of the feast of Napoleon, Mr. de S…, who remained faithful to the Bonapartist party, had gathered at a great dinner some twenty old soldiers of the Empire. The celebration had been very merry and the host, though old, was well preserved and in good health. They were in the drawing room and were taking coffee. “Mr. de S… felt the urge to take snuff and remembered that he had left the snuffbox in his room. As he was in the habit of serving himself, he left his guests for a few moments and went up to the first floor of the house, where the room was located. He had not taken a light.

“When he entered the long corridor that gave access to the room, he stopped suddenly and found himself forced to lean against the wall: before him, at the end of the gallery, he came upon the phantom of the murdered man who, pronouncing no word, nor making any gesture, soon afterward disappeared. It was the promised warning.

“Being of good spirit, after a moment of faintness Mr. de S… recovered his courage and his composure, marched to the room, took the snuffbox, and descended to the drawing room. Upon entering there, he let no sign of emotion show, mingling in the conversation for an hour and revealing all his wit and the same habitual joviality.

“At midnight the guests withdrew. He then sat down, spending three quarters of an hour in recollection; afterward, having put his affairs in order, though he felt no malaise, he reached his bedroom. When he opened the door, a gunshot laid him dead, exactly two hours after the apparition of the phantom.

“The bullet that shattered his skull had been intended for his servant.”

Henri d’Audigier.

— Making a point of fulfilling the promise he had made to the newspaper, to narrate something that would move the readers, did the author of this article draw the story from his fecund imagination, or was it true? That we could not guarantee. Besides, that point is not the most important; real or fictitious, the essential thing is to know whether the fact is possible. Well then! We do not hesitate to say: Yes, warnings from beyond the grave are possible, and numerous examples, whose authenticity could not be cast into doubt, are there to attest to it. If, then, the anecdote of Mr. Henry d’Audigner is apocryphal, many others of the same kind are not; we will even say that this one offers nothing extraordinary. The apparition occurred in a dream, a very common circumstance, when it is well known that they may be produced to the sight, during the waking state. The warning at the instant of death has nothing unusual about it, but facts of this kind are much rarer because Providence, in its wisdom, conceals from us the fatal moment. It is only exceptionally that it can be revealed to us and for reasons that are unknown to us. Here is another more recent example, less dramatic, it is true, but whose exactness we can guarantee. Mr. Watbled, a merchant and president of the Commercial Tribunal of Boulogne, passed away on July 12 last, under the following circumstances: His wife, whom he had lost twelve years before, and whose death caused him constant sorrows, appeared to him during two consecutive nights in the first days of June, saying to him: “God has had pity on our sufferings and desires that soon we be reunited.” She added, further, that the following July 12 was the day set for that reunion and that, consequently, he should prepare himself for it. Indeed, from that moment a notable change came over him: he wasted away day by day, soon taking to his bed and, without any effort and without any suffering, on the appointed day he breathed his last, in the arms of his friends. In itself, the fact is incontestable. The skeptics will be able only to dispute the cause, which they will not fail to attribute to imagination. It is known that similar predictions, made by tellers of fortunes, have been followed by a fatal outcome. In those cases, one conceives that imagination, overexcited by the idea, may cause the organs to undergo a radical alteration: more than once the fear of dying has provoked death. Here, however, the circumstances are not the same. Those who have delved deeply into the phenomena of Spiritism can perfectly account for the fact; as for the skeptics, they have only one argument: “I do not believe it; therefore, it is not possible.” Questioned about it, the Spirits answered: “God chose this man, who was known to all, so that the event might spread and provoke reflection.” — The unbelievers incessantly ask for proofs; God offers them to them at every moment, through the phenomena that arise everywhere; to them, however, these words apply: “They have eyes, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not.” [1]

Directory: Name given to the Government of France that lasted from the 5th of Brumaire of the year IV (October 27, 1795) to the 18th of Brumaire of the year VIII (November 9, 1799), overthrown by General Bonaparte. It was constituted by the Council of the Five — La Revellière, Reubel, Le Tourner, Barras, and Carnot. This Directory governed with the aid of two Chambers: The Council of the Elders and the Council of the 500. (Note by Júlio Abreu Filho.) See also: French revolutionary calendar on the web